Upon reading the synopsis, Richard Girling’s The Longest Story appears to take on an ambitious task: cover the relationship between humans and non-human animals throughout all of history in under 400 pages. Yet somehow Girling, a veteran environmental journalist, is successful. Though The Longest Story does almost exclusively favor Western humanity and culture, Girling provides …
In A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Bird of Prey Jonathan Meiburg has crafted an epic ode to the caracara, a long-overlooked (and often derided) group of birds who deserves more attention and more protection. There are about ten species of caracara and Meiburg takes us around …
Perhaps it is human nature to rank things. We rank cities and states and countries. We have the best restaurants and best movies; we even have best friends. And when it comes to our relationships with animals we share this planet with, there is a fair amount of ranking there as well, with the human …
Two new books to keep an eye out for. First, a story collection from Black Lawrence Press featuring a story by our own JoeAnn Hart! Fire & Water: Stories from the Anthropocene A Sámi woman studying Alaska fish populations sees our past and future through their present signs of stress and her ancestral knowledge. A …
We recently added The Ecological Citizen to our growing list of outlets for environmental writing. Editor Joe Gray was kind enough to answer a few questions about the journal: Tell us about The Ecological CitizenThe Ecological Citizen is an independent, free-to-access online journal that provides a forum for inspiring and mobilizing discussion with an Earth-centred …
Here’s a new journal in our list of outlets for environmental writing. Claw & Blossom is an online seasonal journal of short literary prose and poems that touch upon the natural world. The editor hopes to see explorations that relate meaningful personal struggles not only to a larger picture of humanity but beyond, to the …
Always exciting to see a new award established for environmental writing. This one is for regionally focused writing in the states of Missouri, Arkansas or Louisiana. The Sassafras Award for Excellence in Environmental Writing is a newly-established award of $3,000 that extends the Ozark Society Foundation’s history of publishing books that educate the public on …
In HOMES, interdisciplinary poet Moheb Soliman traces the intricate borders of the Great Lakes—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior (HOMES)—and explores the meanings of home, place, and identity in the spaces where water meets land and nature meets industry. This stunning collection of postmodern ecopoetry prods the ironies that live in these in-between spaces. Soliman excavates …
A wonderful writing opportunity for those of you in the UK: The Sustainability First Writing Prize 2021 is open to British writers and international writers living, working or studying in the UK, over the age of 18 years. Writing could include, but is not limited to, an article, a personal account, an essay, a short …
Véronique Tadjo’s slender, haunting novel In the Company of Men offers myriad points of view—human and nonhuman—in its story of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. Published in French in 2017 and in English in 2021, it’s a timely novel that makes important connections, revealing the devastating impact of how humans treat the …
In Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places, Julian Hoffman shows us endangered habitats and the creatures who inhabit them—as well as the humans who are fighting to save these fragile landscapes. He puts us vividly within these places, portraying just how special and vulnerable they are, and also shows us the passion, dedication, …
PANK Magazine is now accepting works (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrid) for a special issue: Environmental Futures Folio, guest edited by Aram Mrjoian. Here’s the call: The health and sustainability of our environment continues to be threatened and detrimentally harmed in real time. This folio is a call for art that not only considers imagined …
Located north and west of us here in Ashland, Oregon, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology provides educational courses and residencies to artists. And they’re now open for residency applications. Here’s the call: Calling all painters, novelists, climate activists, photographers, biologists, composers, poets, journalists, architects, film makers, performers, inventors, botanists, curators, foresters, ceramicists, playwrights, illustrators, …
Here is a small selection of new and forthcoming environmental books that have come across our inboxes… Persephone in the Late Anthropocene This ecopoetic collection interweaves the voices of Persephone, Demeter, and a human chorus with a range of texts, including speculative cryptostudies that shed light on the culture of the “Late Anthropocene.” More Monster …